Slam Force G’s: Quantifying the Force of a Monster Dunk

This gallery contains 1 photo.

In December, 2011 Turner Sports partnered with the MIT Media Lab to create the SlamForce Net, a basketball net that incorporates segments of conductive fiber whose resistance changes with degree of stretch. By measuring this resistance over time, hardware associated more »

ESPN’s College Basketball Power Index

This gallery contains 1 photo.

There are many computer rankings of college basketball teams, from Sagarin to Kenpom to LRMC to RPI. ESPN developed its College Basketball Power Index (BPI) to provide both a resume and a forecast for college basketball teams, but also accounting more »

The America’s Cup: Augmenting the Visual Experience of Sport

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Sports can be difficult to follow. Did he throw a strike? Was that a first down? Luckily Stan Honey – the inventor of the “K-zone” and the yellow first-down marker in football – has been there to develop technology to more »

The “Athletic Brain” — What Is It and Can It Be Trained?

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Great athletes have a special kind of intelligence; they see, react and understand the game in a way that sets them apart – call it “game sense,” or “having a high sports IQ”. Until recently, these key cognitive skills were more »

AtomStats: Analyzing Baseball Statistics in a New Way

This gallery contains 1 photo.

AtomStats is the brainchild of two MIT sophmores, Mike Attanasio and Webb Horn. It offers an alternative way to analyze a baseball player’s value and predict the outcome of specific situations by accessing disparate data points and organizing them into more »

How New Concussion Technology Will Force Radical Change in Sports

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The Future of NASCAR Driver Development

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Harraka will discuss how 2008 has permanently changed the ways NASCAR driver climb the ladder to the Sprint Cup, and how he and his team are working to take advantage of the inefficiency in the new system to both remake more »

Next Generation Sports Coaching Using Mobile Devices

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The proliferation of smart mobile devices and sensors will enable people to learn sports anytime, anywhere, like never before possible. Imagine a world where a golfer’s smart phone detects flaws in his swing and recommends corrections to his swing mechanics; more »

The Revolution in Advanced Sports Analytic Systems

This gallery contains 1 photo.

You may not know it, but Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have turned the world of analytics systems upside down. In fact, more has changed in the last 24 months than perhaps the last 24 years. These changes are BIG…literally. In more »

How to Cure Tanking

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Encouraged by fans’ desire to cheer passionately for their favorite teams every game of the season, I respectfully propose that draft order should be determined by performance after mathematical elimination. Analysis of historical data suggests optimistic statistical methods based on more »

Fighting with Data: Creating Statistics from Scratch in Mixed Martial Arts

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The challenge for most sports statisticians is in establishing better metrics and correcting existing statistical assumptions. But what’s to be done with a brand new sport with no existing data whatsoever? The rise of Mixed Martial Arts presented an opportunity to more »

The Sixth Tool: Training Baseball Pitch Recognition

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The skill of pitch recognition, measured with metrics such as 0-Swing%, Line Drive %, and BB/K ratio, is so important that it’s become a virtual sixth tool in baseball. But it’s generally considered to be more a talent than a more »

Mind Games: Psychological Assessments in Player Evaluation

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Despite the use of psychological assessment tools in professional sports (e.g., Wonderlic Personnel Test at the NFL Combine), there is no evidence to support their use in predicting any meaningful aspects of individual or team performance. The failure of psychological more »

Achieving Optimal Athletic Performance Through Blood Biochemistry

InsideTracker, brings a one-of-a-kind, science-based platform that helps athletes achieve optimal health and performance by measuring and improving their unique levels of select biomarkers. Through this personalized approach that uses a multi-factorial algorithm to create personalized ranges for healthy markers, more »

The Power of Belief in Sports Performance Research

This gallery contains 2 photos.

The power of the placebo has been recognized in clinical situations for a long time. This has necessitated an increasing sophistication of the construction of clinical trials. Double blinded, three arm trials with an active treatment, placebo treatment and a more »

Automating Bill Simmons

This gallery contains 1 photo.

With all the discussion about how statistical analysis has disrupted various facets of sports, virtually nothing has been said about sports journalism. That’s about to change. Automated Insights, Inc. (via StatSheet.com) has automated the job of writing everything from game more »

Moving Without the Ball

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The same principles being applied in sports’ most innovative front offices and on the playing field are also being implemented by those in charge of the fan experience. That’s especially true in the parking lots and stadium concourses, where getting more »

From 5 to 13: Redefining the Positions in Basketball (2012 EOS/Alpha Award Winner)

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Ever wondered why there are only 5 positions in basketball or how a player’s position is determined? So did we. But now, using Ayasdi’s proprietary data analysis engine and decades of computational topology research at Stanford, we have mathematically categorized more »

Want to present at the conference? Submit an Evolution of Sport idea

The 2011 Evolution of Sport talks featured some of the most thought-provoking sports ideas and have received over 35K website views! Submit your idea for a chance to present at the 2012 Conference.